Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers

June 15, 2010

A recent e-mail from blog user D, who regularly corresponds with The State Worker and contributes to the blog behind the scenes, summed what many folks are saying as June 30 approaches:

There are four significant dates that state workers will be watching and two significant events that could happen any time:

June 21: The day that the 3rd District Court of Appeal will hear Gilb v. Chiang. The case continues a court battle enjoined nearly two years ago when the state controller refused to comply with pay letters from the Department of Personnel Administration to withhold state workers' pay to the federal minimum. Read more about that here.

July 1: The first day of the 2010-11 fiscal year. If there's no budget in place -- and depending on what the appellate court does after hearing Gilb arguments 10 days earlier, the administration could again issue minimum wage pay letters to Chiang's office.

July 2: The first time in a year that state government will be open for business on the first Friday of a month -- assuming the governor sticks with his plan to make June the last month of furloughs.

July 22: The cutoff for changes to the state's master payroll. After this date, the SCO can't process any mass reductions (such as minimum wage) or mass additions (like restoring non-furlough pay levels) for the July pay period. For more about how the state processes pay adjustments, click this link.

After reading that primer, you can view the state's payroll processing schedule, revised in May, by clicking here. Scroll down to PDF page 20. The payroll change cutoff dates are in the 14th column from the left.

Date unknown: The Legislature and the governor agree on a budget. If that happens before June 21, all the other events on this list lose their immediate significance. A long shot at best.

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About The State Worker

The Author

Jon Ortiz launched The State Worker blog and a companion column in 2008 to cover state government from the perspective of California government employees. Every day he filters the news through a single question: "What does this mean for state workers?" Join Ortiz for updates and debate on state pay, benefits, pensions, contracts and jobs. Contact him at (916) 321-1043 and at jortiz@sacbee.com.

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